Comic Book Day: Pull List for March 12th, 2013

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While many of my colleagues are nursing hangovers and food comas from ingesting their body weight’s worth of beer and barbecue at SXSW, the rest of us must soldier on, because the work week waits for no one, especially if you’re not in Austin. With a slew of new releases this Comic Book Day, what’s a discerning fan to do? How shall you ever spend your hard-earned sawbucks? Well, with an inner war between Oppenheimers, Mike Mignola’s twist on a World War II-era Iron Man and a brand new Wolverine series for you to sink your fangs into, there are plenty of reasons to celebrate, even if your co-worker didn’t bring you back a pulled pork sandwich.

Top Picks

Manhattan Projects #10 | Jonathan Hickman and Ryan Browne

If there was any doubt in your mind over whether or not you should be reading Manhattan Projects, issue #10 should shatter that misconception. This may just be the best book you’re not reading (and if you are, well, you’ve got great taste). In this one-shot, we find Oppenheimer facing his greatest enemy yet: himself. As the two halves of his persona – Evil Oppenheimer and Good Oppenheimer – do battle, we’re transported to a visceral mindscape to follow the first decade of Oppenheimer’s inner war, brought to life by Smoke and Mirrors artist Ryan Browne temporarily taking over art duties. While mindscapes are by no means a new comic convention, it’s always refreshing to see them done right, which is exactly what Hickman and Browne have managed in this stellar issue.

Frequent collaborators Mike Mignola and John Arcudi come out swinging with their new series that answers the burning, albeit reductive question of, “What would Mike Mignola’s Iron Man be like?” Set during World War II, Sledgehammer, the titular mechanized behemoth, is worlds away from the glib, one liner-spouting Tony Stark we know and love today. He’s a scrappy, tough sonofabitch who’s going to get down and dirty on the frontlines, taking out Nazi machine gun nests with some sort of electrical discharge. And so we enter into the mystery of Sledgehammer 44: is our hero human or homunculus? We’re never quite sure, but when the art is this well done and the atmosphere is so palpably created, we’re just eager to read more about how this jerry-rigged battlebot will beat Jerry back.

Wolverine #1 | Paul Cornell and Alan Davis

Marvel may be a several months deep into their Marvel NOW! initiative, and their SXSW announcements might have you thinking they’re turning their attention to the digital space, but Paul Cornell (Demon Knights) has returned to the House of Ideas with a brand new ongoing monthly series featuring everyone’s favorite hard drinkin’, hard smokin’, adamantium-laden Canadian, Wolverine. With art from industry icon Alan Davis, this book hits the ground running and leaves a trail of broken bones and singed flesh in its wake. The second Wolverine-centric title in Marvel’s lineup, Wolverine is off to a promising start and should make for a promising addition to the NOW! lineup, especially for those fans who needed a little more berserker rage in their lives.